The Living and the Dead
by TheMadnessofDoctorStrangelove
Summary: Winter River, Connecticut is about to celebrate its 300th anniversary. Lydia Deetz, goth teen, and student photographer for Miss Shannon's School for Girls will be on hand for the celebrations. Also in attendance will be a visiting expert on local history, an eccentric by trade, and eclectic in dress. Together, this unlikely duo may be the town's only hope. A novel in progress.
1. Chapter 1

_Beetlejuice is a 1988 film directed by Tim Burton, produced by The Geffen Company and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures._

_Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC._

_This work is unlicensed fanfiction._

* * *

_Our very first Author's Note features a (highly recommended) word on canon. Oh, joy!_

_The story that follows is best thought of as a tale from the multiverse. As such, while this story is not intended (and obviously cannot) exist within the established canon of either property, the rule of these respective properties are recognized as the background to which the story takes place. In less (MORE!) verbose terms:_

_BEETLEJUICE (1988) has occurred within the continuity of our story, which bases the characterization of its respective characters on that film. Less than a full calendar year has passed since we left the company of those characters at the Maitland House._

_(Classic) DOCTOR WHO (1963-1989) has occurred up until and including the final episode of THE TRIAL OF A TIMELORD (1986). THE DOCTOR is currently in his SIXTH INCARNATION and has recently parted company with a future version of future companion (still with us?) MEL BUSH. Thusly, THE DOCTOR is alone, fresh from his tribulation and has yet to undergo the softening process afforded him by expanded media such as BIG FINISH AUDIO. Consider that your official warning that the 'TV version' of 'Old Sixie' is in the house._

* * *

_PREFATORY MATTERS_

_Chapter One_

The Nikon pinched the box in the middle and warped the reflection of it into a kind of abstract hourglass. Lydia didn't see this. There was no way for her to without a big funhouse mirror to stand beside it: the image and the potential significance was the camera lens' private joke. The glass proved also that the box was no trick of the light, no apparition, which in her case might actually mean something. All her dark eye could see was the viewfinder's approximation of a blue cabinet.

It stood as though it had endured centuries there at the edge of the creek just to sentry on that exact spot. The wood was worn and well used. The blue paint had dulled severely against the elements, and yet an air of defiance pervaded. Speaking of air, the weather was warm and still, stagnant with a kind of listless humidity, which was unusual for a fall day in Connecticut. An even warmer feeling was churning in Lydia's insides, and the mixture with the hot air created an almost euphoric sense of anxiety. The first of many inklings to flee settled in the bottom of her throat. Instead, she framed up and took the photo, and thus began her association with the Doctor.

* * *

Lydia Deetz had gotten an early start that morning. She'd bathed the night before to save time, and wore a heavier blouse under her uniform jacket to help conceal any staleness. Her ablutions for the morning consisted of running a comb through her hair and coating herself down in the insipid lavender spritz Delia had given her for her birthday. Her parents hadn't yet roused, and she raided the fridge in lieu of breakfast. After several long fever-pitched seconds, she snatched the take-out box that housed the orphaned almond beef Delia resoundingly rejected as too fatty. Lydia had agreed with her because she and her stepmother were friends now, and it was nice to try it out once and awhile.

Being on Delia's good side was still new to Lydia. It was strange, like Hawkeye and B.J. trying to make nice with Frank Burns strange. How long could peace really last? How often the Deetz table, before Winter River, had been a living nightmare. Petty dispute after petty dispute. Lydia needed to get out more often. Why didn't she make friends? Meet people. Lydia didn't want to carouse with Delia's hackneyed excuse for friends. Lydia said as much and a whole lot more than that. Deep-rooted hurtful things that she had meant with all her heart but wished she could take back now.

Neither woman would admit it, but they both felt the sting of guilt for poor affable Charles Deetz, left to eat alone while the two people most important to him ate in their rooms while they plotted comeupance. The breakdown, the exodus to Connecticut. For all the blame they had placed on each other, that much more they had laid on their own doorsteps. But, now that had finished. Much had happened since then, and fatty beef had been grounds for an alliance, one highly cherished. Stepdaughter and stepmother had waged war on chewy meat and laughed over lighter things like MASH reruns and Delia's old sculptures, and Dad surrendered the dumplings as compensation and pretended not to be in awe of his ladies. And they let him have that moment.

The food joined the company of a Coke and a handful of soy sauce packets in a plain paper bag out of a cupboard. She almost forgot to slide the door closed on Delia's fancy subzero, and did forget to say goodbye to Barbara and Adam, who did not sleep and had seen her off every day since she had started at the Miss Shannon School. One would think she'd have remembered, considering what she had planned, but off on her Bike she went, without nary a word.

Lydia almost lost her balance twice as she rocketed down the hill toward the start of the next chapter of her life. The Maitland House loomed behind her, and she always felt the need to crane her head back and return its leer. Watching the structure get further away still unsettled and excited her at the same time. It conjured thoughts of Shirley Jackson. Though, what walked the halls of Maitland House didn't walk alone and was actually pretty friendly if you got good coverage of the newly minted Roger's Burger Palace. That's right, Western Culture had reached the sticks.

That reminded her, she hadn't taken those pictures for Adam yet, and she hadn't said boo to him or Barbara this morning, and she almost turned around. The bike jostled stiffly, and she reasserted herself. White-knuckled, she fought the ground the whole way down and figured instead of laboring her way back up she'd touch base with them later. There'd be plenty of time during their 'interview' for the school paper.

The Miss Shannon Tribune. If you had asked her a year ago what she'd be up to now, working for her school paper would have wound up on the fat chance list.

The running story in the rag were pieces on local people who'd come to mean something to the little town of a few thousand. This was probably the product of the upcoming three-hundredth anniversary as Nowhere, USA, a moniker much used by Lydia's contemporaries and much maligned by the faculty of the school. _Profiles in the Power of Small Wins_ didn't fool any of her young comrades. The veil of this little project thinly concealed a viscous resentment toward the young and bored of Winter River, of which Lydia was proud member.

The Tribune had sketched accounts for many of the favorite locals:

Robert Cook, Barber, eighty-eight years old, who could tell you every batting average since 19 and 21, but couldn't figure how many years he'd been cutting hair, or even what he had to eat for breakfast.

William Bozman, thirty-five, owner of the Bozman Building and the big brass lions that guarded the entryway with their big brass...say who wants to see the offices that work out of the Bozman Building. Say! Do you like filling? Categorizing? Alphabetizing? Wanna see an insurance claim get formally rejected?

Roger Dauterive owned Roger's Burger Palace, an inoffensive yet totally unacceptable hangout. His profile did not run. The editor for the paper, Miss Debra Shannon herself, had seen to that.

The prose was stilted and the series writer, Rose Douglas, didn't sell faux enthusiasm very well. So little was her passion, in fact, that she had been placed on whatever passed for academic probation for her underwhelming performance. Something Lydia had avoided with her pictures.

She shot them in black and white and did not ask for poses. She shot her subjects unaware. Without defense, without posturing, she captured the people. She was sure to omit Rose. If ever it could be made more evident that a robot could have conducted these interviews, Lydia wasn't sure how.

She had snuck a picture of Rose once, though, but hadn't found the courage to develop it. Rose sitting in a chair next to the old barber, looking down at her questionnaire, thinking herself so slick, but the camera lens saw it all. Her studious eyes scanning for boogers in the concealed compact in her lap while Old Bill rattled on about Harry Heilmann. Mouth open. Mid-blink. And yet comfortable, familiar, and sincere was Bill Cook. Who in the town hadn't sat with him after a cut and heard a story?

Lydia's best photo had been the image caught in the wall mirror inside the barbershop. Herself plopped in Bill's chair with her camera pointed home, with Bill and his scissors at the ready, his eyes, faced with the spider's web sprouting out of the top of her head, popped in mawkish sham horror. It made the front page. It was about as saccharine it got, but Lydia felt surprisingly good about it. It was the first time she really felt like Winter River was home.

Adam had gotten a good laugh when she brought a copy home. Barbara frowned, unsure how much the photo was at Lydia's expense.

The bike skidded to a stop. Maybe she should have run her idea by them before she proposed it to Miss Shannon. Perhaps, she was getting far too ahead of herself. She took her notepad out of the small basket fixed to the bicycle and turned to the last page with writing on it. At the top of the page, her loopy scrawl etched deeply into the paper.

_IN REMEMBRANCE: THE MAITLANDS. Pictures and Words by Lydia Deetz. Staff Photographer._

The pad disappeared inside Lydia's jacket, and she kept on. Her boots crunked the ground emphatically, like bags of potato chips. The ground pushed the bike to one side and then another as she guided it along like a nosy puppy.

She kept her eyes down, despite having seen the bridge before. Charles had driven her across dozens of times when it was too rainy to pedal to school. But, that was before she knew. When she could feel its cast, shielding her from the early sun, she regarded it severely.

The Winter River Bridge. Built the same year that George Maitland decided the hill overlooking Winter River was where he wanted to spend his life with new bride Eva Lee Moss. It was also where the afterlife had begun for his grandson, Adam, and his beloved wife, Barbara.

Eighty years it had stood. That stirred her. Shirley Jackson shimmered.

The road turned sharply to the left before abruptly depositing into the covered bridge's waiting maw, and from where Lydia stood the darkness within persisted. A much newer addition allowed her to progress. Just to one side of where the old red barn began its flight from the ground across the water, a dirt path had been beaten into the precipice and trailed down at an angle that you walk easily. She followed it. Trees and brush had been wiped cleanly from a very wide pathway and had yet to reclaimed by the foliage. She could see the discarded undergrowth down river where the water flowed out of sight, and her stomach turned a little. This path had been made by the bulldozer to and fro from the bank as it tried to retrieve Adam's yellow station wagon out of the brime.

The blue cabinet hadn't been noticed at first, extra out of the ordinary though it was. Lydia's eyes had been immediately drawn to her query-the badly repaired impact site on the bridges side face. The new unpainted timber opposed the ostentatiously red lumber like broken teeth in a half made up grin. Uneven covering had left three big gaps in the wood.

Her camera hung dutifully around her neck. She rested the wiry bicycle against a sharp incline and took it up. She leaned back until her back popped in annoyance, and snapped a few pictures. She realized she couldn't get a good shot of the repair as part of the bridge unless she begged way off. She hoped to capture the partly restored section of the bridge looking down onto the water where the Volvo had landed. To do that she would have to trek out of the dry grass into the mud further along the bank.

Lydia was not as concerned with her uniform dress as she was the boots under it. A memento from New York, Charles Deetz had mistaken the price tag for a serial number.

It was only after sitting down in the grass and taking a gander at her surroundings a little more alertly, that the blue box finally saw fit to introduce itself.

* * *

One bare foot balanced precariously at the water's edge. A black, leather-clad boot hovered like a ufo searching for a patch to land. All the while, the first of the weathered cupboard's secrets were revealed inside a viewfinder. The box was capped with a small lantern. Block letters PUBLIC CALL sandwiched between the much larger POLICE on the left and BOX on the right atop a mantel that gave way to two clouded windows crossed section into six smaller rectangles. And did she detect light behind the smokey glass? No, that just her imagination.

The camera shutter whirred like a mechanical curtain opening and closing in quick succession. And then again. And then again. And one more time. And then...

Lydia's index finger and thumb cupped around the lens tightly and slowly adjusted the zoom. A faded decal centered in the crosshairs and read thusly:

_POLICE TELEPHONE_

_FREE_

_FOR USE OF_

_PUBLIC_

_ADVICE & ASSISTANCE_

_OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY_

_OFFICERS & CARS_

_RESPOND TO ALL CALLS_

_PULL TO OPEN_

And one more whirl.

The notice got smaller and smaller, becoming just another small feature on this very unnatural occurrence at Winter River Bridge.

It was far too heavy to have drifted in. It stood tall and undisturbed, so it hadn't tumbled down here. Lydia saw no drag marks, but from where she was balancing like a flamingo across the river, she couldn't see all the way around it. She'd have to go back up the hill and then cross the bridge down onto the other side, which would not be as easy as there was no walkway, makeshift or otherwise. She decided to snap her photo of the former accident scene first, then she would get an up-close look at the Police Box. This early trek had afforded her the extra time. The school wasn't open for another hour, and on her bike, it took her about fifteen minutes to make home. No problem there.

The display unfolded again. The poorly reconstructed collision site overlooked the murky end of the line for the Maitlands. _Add maniacal laugh and organ music here._ She smiled to herself and let the shutter whizz. And then something else caught her eye. She zoomed back in on the shambled reconstruction where she swore something had scuttled. Was it the ghosts of the vengeful Maitlands, longing to invite another unsuspecting victim to their watery fate?! No, they were at home, probably wondering why she hadn't popped into the attic yet. And suddenly, Lydia thought she might never have the chance again. For out of the gaps in the timber, two blazing eyes made the distance between predator and prey very, very short.

The camera's last recorded image was that of the sky, fired at when the river hastened to meet the teenager's lithe body. Her mind called for help, but Adam's worn out Belafonte tape, which was at that very moment being fired up at home, would have drowned her out if she were in earshot. The current's hold was quick and unmerciful. _I should have said goodbye_ was Lydia Deetz final thought before the end.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

For a long time after Lydia's minded quieted, all that lived in her conscious thoughts were gleaming eyes. Her name, her self image, her parents, the Maitlands, everything that had culminated in the Lydia Deetz of the now had been swept away in the current. She stared, unaware of self and yet still afraid, at a clean blackboard, and through that slate, blemishing smooth unsullied blackness, were those two pinpoints of light, sharp, tiny, and burning.

As the world tiptoed closer, the impassioned light faded until she could squeeze them between her thumb and forefinger. Her body had returned. The light snuffed, her fingers traced the board. Her flesh ran and smeared. Her arms swooped in big halos around her head. A smile that was not hers tickled her cheeks. A smile that did not reach her eyes. And as Lydia Deetz returned to the world of the living, she took with her a message from the dead. In giant block letters that message was:

_HOLLOW MAN_

Lydia could smell church. That's the only way she knew how to describe the warm sweetness that flared her nostrils. Delia's liberal use of it had been one of Lydia's pet peeves in the beginning when Mis'ess 'chase every eastern fad that hit New York' joined the Family Deetz, as it made her feel queasy and high, but now it made her sore bones unclench. She felt safe. From what she couldn't remember anymore. She felt home.

She listened to her own labored breathing for a long time, still confined to the dark. Her slight wheeze was almost indistinguishable from the soft crackle of the incense stick nearby.

She started suddenly then, unsure if she had dozed. Her eyes shot open. Her lids screamed in protest, and she imagined what they might sound like. _A rickety sailboat at rough seas._ The only thing that wasn't blurry was the tiny pinpoint of light at the end of the scented flame, which danced shadows along the clay sculpture Lydia's stepmother had made. Lydia would never cop to using the bowl as an ashtray. That was a bridge (why did the mention send a chill up her spine) she and her parents had yet to cross. She regretted it now, looking at the work Delia had done.

The flat base of the bowl where the ashes fell tendriled up on the sides into long swirling viridian turns. One of those coils had won dominance in what Lydia imagined was a protoplasmic war of Darwinian proportions and loomed higher than the others. It had formed a kind of dented, rocky head (Delia didn't do a lot of likenesses) and maw with which to snatch any incense sticks that wandered into its dominion. It was very hard for Lydia to manage a smile, but she did.

She drifted from atop her dresser down the templed colored light play to where even brighter flames lit the gloom, smoldering in a tightly wound bundle of chemically altered hair.

The artist responsible for the sometimes ashtray lay halfway across Lydia's midsection. Despite being buried under at least four cacoon layers of blankets, Delia's head seemed surprisingly light. Lydia struggled against her exhaustion and freed a hand from its linen confinement. Her palm lethargically ran along her stepmother's silk kimono, and she nearly cried.

"Delia." Lydia's voice was badly distorted. The air passing through her windpipe made a wavering gurgle. It was like having the worst case of strep throat ever. Even swallowing required several tense seconds of negotiation. At least she was taking air. Death had not taken her, despite rushing to rendezvous. "Delia," she struggled again. Mom was not the word that Lydia ever used, and it had never been asked for. An agreement, silent but mutual, had been settled on that.

Mrs. Deetz stirred and turned her half-asleep face toward her stepdaughter. Her mercilessly plucked brow ridges were furrowed stupidly like the wax cavemen you might see stalking food in the wiles of a museum. She looked angry when she slept. Lydia believed she was still very much the viper she had always been even at rest. A viper who, from the moment Charles had formally declared their union, had sized Lydia up as a possible meal. Yes, still a viper, with poison dripping fangs. God, how Lydia had hated her. But, enemies at war had found peace. Dare the word love ever pass across the lines of the former battlefield? Snakes abandon their young. This one had coiled around another's and had laid claim. Death (or proximity thereof) brought people closer together.

The repressed rage drained from Delia's rounded features. Her smile nearly squinted her slanted eyes shut. She raised her head and, quite demurely mind you, wiped not venom but drool from her bottom lip.

"How are you feeling?" The older woman's tone was patronizing, not by choice, but by lack of experience. It wasn't every day, after all, that a reptile gained the ability to feel for someone else.

"Okay." The gravel she was chewing didn't exactly vouch for her, so Delia's clammy chin pressed against her forehead.

"You feel a little warm." A kiss was snuck on the sly, executed so quickly and abruptly that it was like trying to hide a slap in the face in the middle of a conversation, only somehow more shock-inducing. This punctuated by an oh so loud smack that reigned in a hush of some magnitude. And then they both laughed. Lydia's chest burned with each hiccup of laughter, and a corresponding groan answered each one.

"What happened?" A dark fog loomed over the teenager's memory. There seemed to be a great concrete wall between home and the Winter River Bridge. And when she tried to peek around its edges

_two angry pinpoints of radiant fire race to the barrier like a sentry rottweiler, no voice to bark with and no maw to clench around your throat, but there are screams._

Delia sensed Lydia's body tighten and so she wrapped her hand in hers. "You fell into the river. The current almost swept you away."

Sensations permeated from behind the block in her mind. The lack of oxygen stabbing her, the murky wetness stinging the inside of her nose. And somewhere an image, somehow as much feeling as a picture, swirled into view.

_heaving into a soggy white lapel with a red question mark on it (?)_

"Your dad went into town to fetch a doctor," Delia continued. "I wanted him to have someone flown in from Yale-New Haven, but he insisted on a local-" overdone cringe "sawbones. My God, what were you doing out there?" No pause long enough to answer. "I swear, you'll be the death of your father. You know he has stress issues. I don't know what I do if you died."

"You could visit me in the attic." Lydia was quite proud of that little retort. With it came a shadow of the relationship that had been.

"Young lady, that isn't funny." There was as much hurt as there was tetchiness in her tone. Delia had not used it since the formal introductions to Adam and Barbara had gone so so awry. Not since-Him. "The last thing I need is your father having an infarction over you."

"Did you learn that word on Donahue?"

That's how it always started. A flash of anger quicker than the censor checking the print before it hit the airwaves.

But, instead of Delia's favorite disdainful denouncement-_how dare you(!)_-she sighed, like a dragon slowly allowing the flames to turn to smoke and puff harmlessly out of its snout. "Mayberry only has one doctor. If he has to, your father will drag him kicking and screaming up this hill to see you."

Lydia suddenly wanted to talk to Barbara. "Doctor Andrews," Lydia gargled, recalling another profile in valor in the school paper. "He's a nice man." She appreciated the fuss Delia was making. It was her way, and to see it used in her defense was awe inspiring. It was an incredible power. The power to kvetch, no, to nag, no, to _bitch_ like Delia Deetz née Monroe. This was just a small display of it, presented as a sign of affection and as a clue in into the psyche of a viper. _Belittlement of small-town life? Please turn to the corresponding page in your guide. And the handbook says: the Medusa Viper is very worried for the infant black cat she has adopted. The rabbit she married had better retrieve one hell of a good veterinarian, and he better be good, like freaking Doctor Dolittle or rabbit stew was on the menu tonight._ God help the one who got the fangs.

"Well, hopefully, he's more helpful than the kook who dragged you out of the lake."

"It wasn't dad?"

"You wouldn't believe it even if I took a picture."

Picture. Camera! "My camera!" Lydia's voice crackled while Delia kept talking, who was just sort of talking to the room now.

"He looked like something off of the Bozo Show. He woke us up out of a dead sleep. It sounded like cannonball fire. I thought that preevert who tried to marry you was back. Charles cursed like an old sailor the whole way down, and he would have punched him out and given him a fat nose to go with that stupid coat of his if he hadn't had you in his arms. Maybe he's here ahead of the three hundredth Anniversary Carnival, I just don't know why anyone would want to celebrate three hundred years of staring at the same track houses day after day. I don't why a grown man would wear orange spats. Anyway, so he steps up onto the porch with you in his arms, soaking wet, the both of you, and he says 'I'm fairly certain that this belongs to you.' 'This' he says, like you're a bag of potatoes."

"Did he say anything about my camera? I need it for school."

"He certainly dumped you like one, right on top of Charles. I had to grab you before his back went out. There we are sprawled on the floor with you, and Bozo just stands there looking down at us."

"Delia-"

"He looks me right in the eye and says, 'she had a spill at the Bridge, she'll be fine.' And he walks away! By the time I was up and out the door he was gone!"

"Mom."

A mixture of pride and panic doughed Delia's already creamy complexion. "Yes-dear."

"My camera."

"You didn't have it on you."

Lydia sighed heavily, hitching several times. There went doing something nice for the Maitlands in time for the festival.

"What were you doing down there?"

"Just taking pictures for school."

"Please be more careful. The last thing you want to do is die in this rinky-dink town."

"I love you, too."


End file.
